


Iron Heart, Vibranium Eyes

by TheRainbowSys



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Bucky Barnes Has Issues, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes's Metal Arm, Dissociation, Hero turned Villain, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Rogue Avengers, Rogue turned villain, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony is a little shit, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 15:09:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29902971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRainbowSys/pseuds/TheRainbowSys
Summary: Rehabilitation for Bucky and some nice trauma exploration for both Tony and Bucky. Things go wrong because I enjoy giving my characters a lot of pain.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	Iron Heart, Vibranium Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own these characters, they belong to Marvel.

> _An iron heart feels more strongly than most..._

Tony Stark: the legacy of the Stark name, the son of a weapons dealer, used as a tool by Obadiah Stane.

Tony had been beaten, used, left for dead. Drained of every last thing that had ever given him hope, made him happy. Yet through it all, he survived. He may have been broken, shattered beyond belief… but he was alive. And surely that was what mattered? Surely that was a testament of his strength?

Tony had always struggled making real friends. He knew he probably came across as too arrogant, too self-absorbed- but really, that was almost certainly due to the lack of affection he received growing up. Some emotionally neglected children grow up to be accommodators, to put everyone else first and make sure others got the love that they themselves never received. Others grow up learning to put themselves first, relying only on themselves for everything, sometimes including emotional support. If said emotional support involved drinking themselves into oblivion to forget why they were ever hurting in the first place, that is.

And Tony?

Without a doubt, Tony was the second kind. He’d spend night after night curled up by himself on the couch, bottle of whiskey in hand as he drank his feelings away, the burn of the alcohol in his throat chasing away the burn of tears in his eyes. He found that he came to rely on it, that his only solace came from the amber liquid in his glass. 

He had never felt so ashamed in his life.

Tony wanted to change, to get better. He really did, but his betrayals and the trauma they had given him were like an open wound that just wouldn’t heal. On nights he didn’t drink, the nightmares crept into his head, tendrils of darkness taking hold of his unconscious mind. That was the main reason he drank most nights: he was too scared of what was in his own head to stay sober.

Meeting, and subsequently beginning a relationship with, Pepper Potts was the start of a significant improvement in Tony’s life. For the first time in what felt like _forever_ , he felt like he was wanted, like he mattered to someone. Pepper genuinely cared about him, wanted him to be safe and happy and _okay_ , and for the first time in probably ever, Tony felt like maybe he was. He drank less, the nightmares when he was sober were less frequent. He put it down to the fact that, for once in his life, he wasn’t alone. He’d been alone for what felt like his whole life. This… this was nice. 

He should have known that could only last too long. When something seems too good to be true, it usually is. He should have remembered that, shouldn’t have let his guard down. Things went downhill far too quickly- Tony’s sleepless, terror-filled nights led to exhaustion-fuelled fights, his trauma meant that he was pushing Pepper away every time things got bad, and honestly Pep didn’t know how to cope with it all. He didn’t blame her. He couldn’t- Tony was never one to blame others for his own fuck ups. But he was never good at accepting that some things weren’t his fault, so if Pepper had a hard day at work or an argument with a friend or her parents, Tony instantly blamed himself. That caused more fights as Pepper became frustrated with what she called his “self-sabotaging behaviour”. 

Eventually, she just… left. If asked, Tony would claim that they were simply taking a break, although he knew that the truth was far from that. She couldn’t cope with him and left. That was the simple truth of the matter, and that _hurt_ to know. The resulting spiral was worse than anything Tony had ever experienced- on nights he didn’t drink, he stopped sleeping entirely. He’d still get drunk most nights, but sleep only came when he drank himself into unconsciousness. He ate much less than he used to… Tony was honestly just falling apart, and because he wouldn’t open up about it to anyone, the Avengers didn’t know how to help him.

The physical evidence of the breakdown that Tony was experiencing was all there- he constantly looked pale and exhausted, he was losing so much weight, he barely spoke. But because none of the others knew what even was going on with him, they had no idea at all how to help him. Rhodey and Natasha went out of their way to cook for him- which was a miracle in itself, seeing as Nat was a disaster in the kitchen- only for Tony to take a few bites and then push the plate away. 

The ongoing battle with Steve over the Accords really wasn’t helping Tony’s mental state in the slightest. He felt like he was losing everything, like everyone in his life he had ever trusted to some extent was letting him down or leaving him. All he wanted was to keep the team together, and here was Mr Perfect Captain America trying his damn best to rip them apart. 

Sure, Tony had always had… issues with Steve, but this was just ridiculous. When him leaving meant he took half the team with him- including the Scarlet Witch, the most dangerous and out of control of them all- Tony couldn’t have it. Wanda needed training. She needed support, and she sure wasn’t going to get it with Rogers. It was because of Steve that the whole Lagos disaster had took place anyway. He’d got distracted by his obsession with that HYDRA soldier, and was way too close to Rumlow when he decided to blow himself to bits. Wanda had needed to take action to save him, but in saving him had taken the lives of the hundreds of people that were in the building she threw him into.

The battle that ensued cost Tony so much. It was going fine, more sparring than anything else as neither side could actually handle hurting the other. That was, until Rhodey hurt Wanda, and then suddenly he was falling. Vision had shot at him, and Tony still wasn’t sure after all this time whether it had been revenge for hurting his girlfriend or just an honest mistake. Because Vision didn’t make mistakes. He’d claimed to be distracted, but Tony didn’t think that was possible either. But that could have cost him his best friend. He didn’t know what he’d have done if Rhodey hadn’t survived the fall.

As it was, the man ended up paralysed from the waist down from a severe spinal injury. It was because of the suit, because of Tony’s designs, that he’d survived at all. This was the one time Tony was able to not blame himself. He turned all his blame, all his anger, on to Steve. Because really, this was all his fault for starting this stupid fight in the first place. If he’d have just signed the damn accords…

Tony had seriously thought things couldn’t get worse. 

He’d gone to find Steve, to help him with this whole thing with Bucky. He hadn’t carried out the bombing in Vienna like they’d thought, so Tony was planning to help them clear his name. But instead, he was being shown footage of Bucky- and it was definitely him, the glint of metal in the moonlight proved that- murdering his parents. Who he thought had died in a car wreck… “He killed my mom!” was all he could say, the only words he could pick out from the heart-wrenching sorrow that was encompassing him at that point. And then… and then. What happened from that point on was a blur of fighting, of fists and shields and metal. The next thing Tony knew after that blur was pain, so much of it. And cold, too. It was so cold…

He must have blacked out, because next thing he knew he was in medical in the tower. Machines surrounded him, beeping steadily as they did their job to keep him alive. Natasha sat by his side. That was unexpected- Tony had thought he’d be alone when he opened his eyes.

From there, barely giving himself enough time for recovery, Tony threw himself into creating and working on tech to help Rhodey be able to walk again. He sat with him once a week for his physiotherapy for moral support, only to feel worse about the whole thing and lock himself in his lab for hours to work on something, anything, to help him walk again. In the end, he managed to create a set of braces to support him and enable him to walk, and then incorporated them into the new suit he was designing for him.

It wasn’t long after the braces and suit had been completed that Tony learned of Bucky’s decision to be put into cryo in Wakanda, and the Soldier that had been controlling him since HYDRA took him from that ravine. That… honestly made a lot of sense. It was the Soldier, not Bucky, who had killed his parents. Bucky had just been forced to watch the whole thing from inside his own head. And of course that gave Tony something else to work on- helping to rid Bucky of HYDRA’s influence while he was frozen, so that he could be brought back and not be a danger. 

So that Tony could help him.

He’d always had some form of hero complex, of course he had- that’s why he became Iron Man in the first place. So now he was being presented with the opportunity to actually be a hero once again, without the backlash that had been caused in Sokovia, in Lagos and god knows where else while the Avengers had been kicking ass there. Tony still wasn’t quite sure if the number of people they saved outweighed the damage or vice versa, but either way there had been a hell of a lot of damage, and this was his chance to help someone without the repercussions. 

So once again he threw himself into working, locking himself in his lab for days on end. Some days he even slept in there- not through any choice of his own, purely because he’d crashed from exhaustion either at his workbench or the floor. 

It took a while, but eventually he figured something out and was on his way to Wakanda to bring back their White Wolf.

> _An iron heart falls hard, but doesn’t trust easy…_

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked the fic and have Discord, I have a server set up for updates and discussion about it! https://discord.gg/FnzNvqUVfM


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